By Bryan B
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Be gentle on yourself, learn to love and appreciate yourself, you are a brave soul who by the grace of God is taking a risk to grow, to change, to heal and to recover.
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You didn’t get here overnight so it is going to take time to learn new ways to cope and live.
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Learn to forgive yourself and let God forgive you. We can be our worst critics and can and have been experts at beating ourselves up. Be gentle on yourself.
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It is important to identify clearly what behaviors you are trying to stop. What are your bottom lines that you want to abstain from.
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A big part of our problem is that when we go to our addiction, we isolate from others. We need to develop a support system or others who we can contact regularly and enter into healthy open relationships with.
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We need to try to daily make conscious contact with God, through prayer, meditation, the Bible, a good book-It is going to take finding God in a real and tangible way for any of us to leave the bondage of this sin.
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We would love for our freedom from this addiction to be a straight shot upwards, that may happen for some, but my experience tells me that there are a series of dips and valleys as we steadily progress upwards on our journey towards healing.
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Part of the healing process will involve us really coming to understand what makes us tick, we really need to learn to become our own therapists (but not in isolation in the community of others who care for us and love us).
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There is a withdrawal period that all of us will need to go through. The time varies for each person, anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. There comes a day when you have to prepare yourself to go through this. Many men opt with the agreement of their wives to do 90 days of celibacy. This is a very helpful tool- especially for those of us who have never gone 90 days since we were young children.
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Be as brutally honest as you possibly can, Find a support group/accountability group in which you can be honest about where you are, what you are or have been doing and what you are going through. As an addicted person most of us have spent our whole lives hiding our real selves and trying to look better than we really are.
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Be willing to go to whatever lengths are necessary to recover, get better and stop acting out. This may mean, dissassociating with certain people, not going to certain places, getting rid of the internet, etc. etc.
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Try to find others you can call when you are struggling- get a list together and have it with you at all times.
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Take this one day at a time. No one can vow that they won’t act out for a week, a month, a year, Break it down and just for today- do the right thing- be good to yourself- don’t act out just for today.
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Make a list of enjoyable healthy things you can do instead of acting out. Keep this list around and when you are bored or feel like acting out, do those things on that list instead.
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We are only as sick as our secrets, I lived a double life for years, get real with someone and as you are able begin to get accountability in your life. My biggest fear my whole life was if People really knew who I was they would not love me, they would reject me and leave me. I personally have found love, healing and forgiveness as I have stopped pretending to be something I am not and reached out and asked for help.
I just wanted to share these few thoughts this weekend to my dear brothers. Don’t ever, ever give up. keep on the journey one day at a time. Don’t check out of life by acting out, instead stay present and learn to truly live.
Bless you all,Bryan B.